Wednesday, January 15, 2014

........university professor and researcher Erica Chenoweth explains in the following TED video…

She finds (through her research) that when an average 3.5 percent of any given population engages in non-violent (civil) resistance on a sustained basis, “no single campaign failed.” She also finds that “every single campaign that surpassed that 3.5 percent was a non-violent one.” She goes on to say that “In fact, the non-violent campaigns were on average four times larger than the average violent campaign, and they were often much more inclusive and representative in terms of gender, age, race, political party, class, and the urban role distinction. Civil resistance allows people of all different levels of physical ability to participate. This could include the elderly, people with disabilities, women, children, and anyone else who wants to. If you think about it, everyone is born with a natural physical ability to resist non-violently…”